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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23073934">Growth (Or Else)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat'>blackkat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Gen, Humor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:41:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,505</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23073934</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“What did you <i>do</i> to it?” Han asks, horrified. </p><p>Leia has no idea, but she isn't about to admit that.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Leia Organa &amp; Han Solo, Leia Organa &amp; Luke Skywalker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>996</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fun/Humour/Crack in a Galaxy Far Far Away, Jedi Journals</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Growth (Or Else)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetlebee/gifts">beetlebee</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the 30 minute gift exchange on my discord server!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“<em>I’ll be back before it blooms, don’t worry</em>,” Leia mocks under her breath, shoving reports around her desk with maybe slightly more force than is strictly required. “Oh, sure, let me run off while the galaxy is in danger, show up and save it, and then <em>disappear again</em>, because <em>I'm</em> the great Luke Skywalker—”</p><p>“Uh,” Han says from the doorway. “Something wrong, Princess?”</p><p>In a massive and entirely admirable show of self-restraint, Leia doesn’t throw a rock at him. “I'm <em>fine</em>,” she snaps. “What did you break now?”</p><p>Han’s expression twists in deep offense, and the look is so hilariously ridiculous that there's no way Leia is ever going to <em>stop</em> offending him if he keeps making that face. “Well, excuse me, Your Highness, this peasant nerfherder just stopped by to see if you wanted something to eat. You know, like us <em>commoners</em>.”</p><p>“I have work,” Leia tells him, pointedly not moving away from her overflowing desk. “I’ll eat later.”</p><p>Han rolls his eyes. “If you actually want company, I’ll be overhauling the <em>Falcon</em>’s engines with Chewwie,” he says. “Unless you're still in the mood to use people as target practice then.”</p><p>Leia rolls her eyes right back. “No one’s getting used as target practice,” she says. “But if you want something to use, take that ugly cactus.”</p><p>Han frowns, looking from Leia to the terrible, awful, hideously ugly cactus sitting on the edge of her desk. “Isn't that the one Luke gave you?” he asks. “Oh, come on, he was being <em>nice</em>, Princess.”</p><p>“Weren’t you leaving?” Leia demands, and <em>doesn’t</em> smile when Han pulls another outraged face and turns on his heel, stalking away.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Leia <em>does</em> eat eventually, more because Mon makes her than because she remembers herself. She gets distracted, too, so she’s late getting back to her office, but—</p><p>The door’s open. She <em>knows</em> she wouldn’t have left the door open.</p><p>When she stalks inside, though, ready to pull a blaster on whatever scumbag decided to riffle through her files, the room is empty. The only signs that someone besides her has been inside are a cup of still-warm caf sitting haphazardly on the edge of her desk and the fact that the cactus has been shifted. There’s a piece of flimsiplast stuck to the pot, and on it someone’s drawn a truly hideous stick figure with a mop of shaggy hair and a poncho. Its hands are bent in front of it, gripping what’s either a lightsaber or its own very oversized dong, and below are the words <em>my sister is a mean sleemo woodrat</em> in a surprisingly neat script.</p><p>Leia makes a sound of pure, incandescent fury and snatches up the note. There are two possible culprits, and only one of them is in the base right now. Not about to show mercy, Leia snarls, “I’ll give you a good reason not to deface other people’s gifts, you <em>stoopa kung</em>!” and stalks out to find Han and make him <em>eat it.</em></p><p>Before she goes, she dumps the caf right into the cactus. It’s a <em>hideous</em> cactus. Luke has the worst taste of any sentient being she’s ever met, and she’s met <em>Jabba</em>.</p><p>He’s still not back, and she hates that she’s been paying attention enough to know that.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“What did you <em>do</em> to it?” Han asks, horrified.</p><p>Leia has no idea, but she isn't about to admit that. Shoving him back, she rounds her desk with all the dignity she can gather, and carefully steps over trailing, thorny fronds covered in multicolored flowers. “It’s <em>fine</em>,” she says, maybe a little aggressively, but Luke's stupid potted cactus is covering half of her desk, looking like a flower shop exploded down its suddenly much longer arms, and when she locked up last night it <em>definitely</em> wasn’t any different from the short, squat, ugly thing it’s been for a month now.</p><p>Han eyes the cactus incredulously, then her, and doesn’t say anything. Which is good. Just because she’s sleeping with him doesn’t give him the right to make comments about gifts that were given to her and that she has absolutely not been trying passive-aggressively to kill.</p><p>Besides, he won't tell her where Luke is, and she <em>knows</em> he knows. They're inseparable, even when Luke is off doing something that’s probably dangerous somewhere that’s definitely deadly and <em>didn’t even ask if Leia wanted to come</em>.</p><p>She’s just as much Anakin Skywalker's daughter as Luke is Anakin's son. She’s been <em>training</em>. She’s never been helpless. And if Luke wants to go running off to the ends of the universe and leave her behind, like they're not even <em>twins</em>—</p><p>“Leia,” Han says, and there’s an odd note in his voice. “Did you <em>tell</em> Luke that you wanted to go with him?”</p><p>“Of course I didn’t,” Leia snaps, “because that would mean I wanted to go, and I <em>don’t</em>. Who would? Luke can crawl around what swampy rot-infested mudhole he wants, but I'm certainly not volunteering. <em>Some</em> of us have actual <em>work</em> to do.”</p><p>Han’s face does disbelief better than any ten Senators she knows combined. Leia refuses to admit that it’s anything close to adorable.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“You're a pain,” Leia tells the cactus, carefully scooping up its trailing fronds and trying to lay them over the simple trellis she cobbled together out of a tangle of old wire. “What in the name of the Force convinced him to leave me a <em>cactus</em>? This is a terrible planet for you.”</p><p>A yellow flower, knocked loose by the movement, flutters to her desk, and Leia stops with a sigh. She lays the tendril over an edge of the wire, then picks up the flower, cradling it in one hand. It’s almost the same color as Luke's hair, and she has to close her eyes for a moment.</p><p>Wherever he is, she knows he’s not in trouble. He’s safe. But—</p><p>The cactus is blooming, and there’s been no sign of him.</p><p>Leia isn't stupid. She knows perfectly well that a cactus flowering isn't some kind homing beacon to her idiot twin brother, letting him know it’s time to return to the base. But at the same time, there’s an itch in the back of her head that’s just been getting stronger, a steady awareness of him no matter what backwater planet he’s crawling around on, and some part of her thought maybe Luke was paying just as much attention to her. They're both orphans now, after all. They're both about the only family each other has. And even if Luke is the one who got the magical space wizard training, Leia can manage the same. She’s good at it.</p><p>“Oh,” a voice says, jarring in the midnight hush of the base. “What did you <em>do</em> to it?”</p><p>Leia's heart leaps, and she shoves up from her chair, wrenching around. In the open door of her office is Luke, still dressed in his flight suit, with a small box tucked under one arm.</p><p>“<em>You</em>,” she says, and Luke laughs, lunging forward with greyhound grace. Leia grabs him in return, colliding hard with him and hauling him close, and Luke laughs into her loose hair, spins her around.</p><p>“Hey, Leia,” he says warmly, and Leia wraps her arms around him and squeezes <em>aggressively</em>. “Miss me?”</p><p>“Never,” Leia says, and means precisely none of it. She clutches him tightly for a long moment, and then breathes out. Demands, sharp, “Where even <em>were</em> you, Luke?”</p><p>For a moment, Luke is silent. Then, carefully, he pulls away, and offers her the box with an earnest expression that shouldn’t fit the man who defeated the Emperor. But it does, and Leia smiles despite herself, taking it carefully. It’s polished wood, but old, and when she opens the lid there's a layer of silk covering the contents.</p><p>“I went to get something for you,” Luke says. “On Coruscant.”</p><p>“Coruscant?” Leia wrinkles her nose. Coruscant is the stronghold of the Empire, and even now, it’s a dark, dangerous place. “What in the world is on Coruscant?”</p><p>“The ruins of the old Jedi Temple,” Luke says quietly. “The Emperor built his palace over them, but—the lowest layers are still there.”</p><p>Carefully, Leia pulls aside the silk, and then goes still.</p><p>“It belonged to a Jedi named Shaak Ti,” Luke says, quick, like he thinks—something. That she doesn’t like it, maybe. “She was a Jedi Master—Master Yoda talked about her, and I thought—I know Jedi are supposed to make their own, but…”</p><p>Leia's heard about Shaak Ti. Her father used to tell her, when she was a child. Stories about Jedi and wars and brave fighters, and—</p><p>“Thank you, Luke,” she says, and closes her fingers around the heavy, worn hilt. A Jedi carried this, once.</p><p>A Jedi will again, she thinks.</p><p>Luke smiles, warm. Reaches out, and Leia steps into his hold, hugs him back with a vengeance, and—</p><p>“No, really,” Luke says into her hair. “What did you do to my cactus?”</p><p>“Oh, shut the hell up,” Leia mutters, but she’s grinning.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23813320">[podfic] Growth (Or Else)</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/lilypods">lilypods (atamascolily)</a>
    </li>
  </ul>
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